rocks weathered and transported from upland to lowland by sedimentation. in case of limestone presence, the evolution of soil profile by lime is markable.
Dear Dr. Sokouti:
You have to investigate the soil and the parent material as to the characteristic minerals which in this case may be heavy and light minerals. Try and find out along a pedological catena how these minerals change along the profile and identify inhomogeneities which can be due to aeolian input or air fall tuffs.
See also “A revised approach to classify parent material for soil mapping
Ulrich Schuler, Rainer Baritz, Jan Willer, Koos Dijkshoorn, Harald G. Dill
Federal Institute for Geosciences and Natural Resources, Version 1.3
Draft, 2011. e-Soter , 129 pp.“
where you will certainly encounter a lot of information related to your issue.
H.G.Dill
Identification of primary minerals in the sand fractions of soils under petrographic microscope generally help the establish the provenance of minerals in the formation of soils. The effect of limestone in soil formation is difficult to follow because such rock system is made primarily of calcium carbonate and thus may not have any primary minerals.In your case study the influence of other rock formations might have caused the soil formation.Please look for such possibility.
The question is very nicely explained by a very senior and knowledgeable Pedologist of our time. However, distribution of non-clay fraction within and between the soil profile could help to explain the impact of parent material on soil formation. This is very simple method and very nicely explained by Brasad in the book published by name of Chemistry of Soils. Many other publications have also been noted on this subject.
XRD based observations are basically dependent on few sample analysis limited to typifying pedon of a series or benchmark series/profile. The observations could not be proven further statistically to convert them into findings. However, analysis based on non-clay fraction could be proven statistically due to the data available for large number of soil profiles. This could be used to understand the uniformity in parent material within and between the soil profiles to reaffirm the boundary between the land-forms/physiography/ landscapes. The adulteration in the parent material at the shorter interval and at the different depth could also traced by studying the non-clay fractions . Number of publications are available and could be referred.
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